Abstract

Although the impact of globalization on state sovereignty and citizenship has been the focus of many studies, few have yet to consider its affects on Aboriginal people. This research begins to fill this gap. Drawing on the experiences of one “resource-rich” community, the Mikisew Cree First Nation (MCFN), this study explores how state-market-MCFN relations have changed in the neoliberal era. Combining document analysis with primary research, it identifies challenges raised by shifting state policies and market relations and provides insight into the way MCFN is managing the political and economic demands of Aboriginal self-determination. It argues that the political economy of Aboriginal self-determination reflects the neoliberal logic that the well-being of First Nations in the new economic order is a function of their ability to compete as autonomous, self-governing and self-sufficient entities in the global marketplace, rather than as wards of the state. Federal and provincial welfare state policies, once blamed for Aboriginal socio-economic problems, have been replaced by policies designed to promote Aboriginal market participation and self-sufficiency. By changing the definition of the “Indian problem,” from needing state protection to seeing the state as the barrier to Aboriginal socio-economic development, the shift in the direction of the state vis-a-vis Aboriginal policy, from paternalism to partnership, makes sense. Interestingly, it is within this shift to neoliberalism that some Aboriginal communities are able to find space within which to develop their own solutions to their many problems. Therefore, this study concludes that globalization, being closely wedded to neoliberalism, provides a framework through which we can better understand and explain the political economy of Aboriginal self-determination as it reflects broader changes occurring in the state-Aboriginal relationship as well as within Aboriginal communities.